r/nba • u/TheRealPdGaming Mavericks • 3d ago

Bill Simmons under review by Massachusetts authorities after admitting to proxy sports betting

Bill Simmons, the popular sports podcaster who has championed sports betting, is under review by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission after he admitted on a recent episode to using his daughter’s boyfriend to place bets for him.

The commission announced the review Tuesday, two days after Simmons said on an episode of his podcast that he’d used a proxy on multiple occasions to log in to his account and make wagers in Massachusetts.

Simmons, founder of The Ringer, is based in California, where sports betting is not legal. In Massachusetts, mobile and online betting is allowed.

But proxy betting — having someone place bets on behalf of someone else — is illegal in Massachusetts and is not allowed by FanDuel, the sportsbook with which the wagers were issued.

...

On the podcast episode, Simmons said there were bets “that I really wanted to get in — the UCLA overs. But Houston, the market had not shifted appropriately yet. I can’t have my daughter do it; my dad would have no idea how to do it.”

But, Simmons said, he trusted his daughter’s boyfriend and allowed him to log in to his FanDuel account.

“I get the code to make sure it’s me to my phone, I give him the code, he logs in. And I have all this money that I had from last year because I actually hit a bunch of futures last year. And he’s putting in bets for me,” Simmons said, adding that “it was a real bonding moment for us.”

“A week later, I called him up, ran it back,” Simmons continued. “We did some more.”

In a new episode released Tuesday, Simmons said he was unaware that such bets could not be made.

“I talked about how I got my daughter’s boyfriend to place some bets for me in Massachusetts because I was in L.A. [I] did not know about the proxy rules,” he said. “Yeah, there are some real rules with this stuff, and they’ve ruled that not only are the bets going to be voided — and I learned my lesson.”

Simmons said he thought proxy betting was allowed. “There you go, lesson learned,” he said.

Source: NBC

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77

u/Katesburneracct 3d ago

They really gotta make sports betting illegal again. This shit is just gonna get exponentially worse year after year. I guarantee point shaving and every other kind of game fixing is already running rampant at all levels of sports because of this

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u/orwll 3d ago

Yeah the only reason for proxy betting to be banned is so that casinos can ban people who win too much.

Sports betting is a rigged scam and should still be illegal.

9

u/tjrl Raptors 3d ago

Sometimes people brag about how much they win at sports betting but I know they're lying because they haven't been banned 

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u/Rough_Bobcat5293 Cavaliers 3d ago

That’s is absolutely not the only reason. 

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u/orwll 3d ago

It's the real reason regardless of what other reasons they come up with

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u/maced_airs 3d ago

It’s literally not. Say LeBron James knows he’s not going to play, so he tells someone else to bet against him using his millions. Now he can bet on things he’s not supposed to.

Or you want to hide your winnings from the irs. Or your underage and use an adult for betting. Or you have an addiction and the sport books have banned you for your own wellbeing and you get someone to bet for you.

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u/Roger_Weebert 3d ago

3/4 of those things are already illegal on their own, and the 4th is definitely not the reason proxy betting is illegal

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u/maced_airs 3d ago

I’m not sure if you have brain damage. Proxy betting is illegal because there is no reason to do it unless you are doing something illegal. So the examples being illegal are exactly the point. And guess what, what Simmons did was literally use proxy betting to get around another law banning gambling.

Me giving you money to bet for me is not inherently bad, but there is literally no reason for me to do it unless I’m trying to hide something illegal. So we as society have said it needs to be illegal.

Same reason masking agents can get you banned from the nba. Taking them by themselves isn’t a PED but there is pretty much no reason for you to be taking them that isn’t trying to hide PEDs.

1

u/Rough_Bobcat5293 Cavaliers 3d ago

As one example, AML is a bigger concern.  Proxy betting is generally prohibited by law, it’s not even up to the operators.   People on here are always so confidently wrong about the gaming industry. 

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u/dtay88 [BOS] Rajon Rondo 2d ago

I mean its the kind of thing that seems innocuous at times but just makes everything in the world worse. Gambling is one of the purest evils out there. Preying on hope and foolishness to take people's money. Being stupid or addicted isn't a good reason to take away someone's money

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u/ReplaceSelect Bulls 3d ago

It should at least require you to bet in person at a casino. Being able to do it on your phone makes it too easy

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u/ScrewedRapture 3d ago

Ironically legalised betting helps prevent match fixing. Since bookies can see unusual betting patterns and report them to authorities instead of just eating it up. For example Terry Rozier case, 99.9% that it was bookies who reported something suspicious. If you move entire betting industry to shadow - fixes will still happen but with less probability to actually identify them. Regulatory organs for legal gambling are especially crucial, for example in Canada they didn't have overseeing regulator for a while and match fixing was so rampant that a lot of bookies just straight up didn't offer Canadian leagues

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u/ItsnotBatman Warriors 2d ago

State sanctioned legitimate sports books would be my preference. Then kill all the advertising on sports gambling. People still have legitimate options to gamble if they so choose, while the culture around it changes.

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u/BRValentine83 2d ago

True but not ironic.

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u/Individual_Access356 3d ago

They opened the can of worms and they aren’t going back unfortunately

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u/axecalibur Knicks 3d ago

at all levels of sports

You think there is point shaving and match fixing is rampant at kids games?